It's all very simple, as far as Neil Warnock is concerned. Look, explained the Queens Park Rangers manager, if Joey Barton wasn't the person he is, if he didn't have "other things" about him, then as one of the best midfielders in the country he wouldn't be at a relatively small, newly promoted club like his, would he?

Naturally, Warnock continued, he would have told Barton to do his talking with the ball, something that along with his team-mates, the former Manchester City and Newcastle United player had just spent 90 minutes doing to such devastating effect that Wolves had been not so much beaten as humiliated. It was time-added-on that was the problem.

Badly fouled by Karl Henry, a player with whom Barton has had previous run-ins, and refused even the consolation of a free-kick, Barton began a frank exchange of views which continued well after the final whistle and, as far as Barton was concerned, via Twitter well into the evening. "I bet u Kelvin [sic] Henry feels like an idiot today. He should just keep his trap firmly shut. #sundayleague player" was Barton's first missive from the coach back to west London. It was shortly followed by "Wasn't happy another player tried to cause an injury when the game nearly over. Just cos he's inferior in every way #mug".

The Wolves manager, Mick McCarthy, was also a target, for apparently suggesting he had decided not to pursue an opportunity to take Barton from Newcastle. As my colleague Marina Hyde pointed out in these pages last week, it would be a crying shame if, having finally found a medium for candour, footballers were to be prevented from expressing themselves by clubs fearful of bad publicity.

Nor, happily, is there any indication Rangers are inclined to try and prevent Barton's remarkable, if occasionally naive, flow of words. The pity of it is that what he had to say will inevitably overshadow as enchanting a performance from a newly promoted side as you could wish to see.

To a man, Rangers were outstanding. The defence, the centre-backs Anton Ferdinand and Danny Gabbidon in particular, prevented Wolves from having more than one or two attempts on goal. Their total dominance allowed the full‑backs Luke Young and the genuinely exciting Armand Traoré to "bomb on", as managers like to put it, and with Barton and the brilliant Alejandro Faurlin pulling the strings in midfield, and Shaun Wright‑Phillips and Adel Taarabt constantly on the move ahead of them in search of space, the home team were simply overrun.

It is true, as McCarthy pointed out, that Rangers were "aided and abetted" by Wolves, who by the time they started to apply themselves were already two down to goals by Barton and Faurlin. The cushion enabled the visitors to relax, and they should have been five or six to the good before DJ Campbell's late third, but from the neutral point of view, their movement and passing throughout the game was a joy to watch. And this from a Warnock side, too. Perhaps it is time to reassess the much-maligned Yorkshireman.

"I had a vision in my own mind where the new lads would play without disrupting things too much, and they have done what I expected them to do, after all, most of them are experienced," said Warnock. "I don't think there's a better right-back in the country than Young, I think Ferdinand is as good as anyone in the country when he plays like he does, Traoré too – I don't see many better left‑backs. Barton, if he hadn't other things about him, would be at one of the top-four clubs. Shaun Wright‑Phillips has a lot of people now in front of him international-wise, but I don't see many better. Faurlin is as good as anyone in the country.

"But I think the main thing for all of them is, whilst they may have things to prove, they're all enjoying it – it's a great time to be here. We're going to get beat every now and then, but so what, we're going to try and win every game, home and away, and try and entertain and to hell with it."

Entertain they did, so much so that for the new Rangers owner, Tony Fernandes, it was "just like watching Brazil". And even Barton ended on what might just about be regarded as a conciliatory note, by tweeting the Friedrich Nietzsche aphorism: "Love your enemies, because they bring out the best in you."